This article briefly describes the process of welding and then describes some of the most popular methods of welding in use today.

Welding is any technique to do with attaching a number of segments, surfaces, plates or sometimes pipes of exactly the same material together by means of employing heat. In many cases the two segments of the two materials melt and fuse together to form one when cooled. Some welded materials however do not melt for instance copper or brass. These materials are joined using brazing which is very much like soldering but uses much higher temperatures. Brazed metals are joined employing a filler, that's melted and put on to each surface prior to being melted again and cooled to join the two surfaces together.'till the end of the 1800s all welding was doneaccomplished by forge welding. To forge weld a blacksmith would heat both surfaces to be joined and then hammered them until they joined together. Late in the 19th Century ARC Welding and Oxyfuel Welding were developed and electric resistance welding followed soon after. Welding technology advanced during the First World War and Second World War where better, cheaper and quicker welding methods were demanded to boost wartime manufacturing. Ever since the Great Wars many other forms of welding have been developed, some are manual, some semi-automatic and others fully mechanised. Manual Welding processes include: - ARC (MMA) Welding -Relies on a welding power supply to generate an electric arc, or plasma discharge, by passing current through the air, between the welding electrode or welding rod and the material to be welded which melts the material to be welded. Some form of shielding or inert gas usually protects the welding area. Oxyacetylene Welding - Uses fuel gases combined with oxygen (not the atmospheric air) to weld or cut metals by heating. Tungsten (TIG) Welding - Uses a non-consumable tungsten electrode or welding rod to produce an arc at the site of the weld. Some sort of shielding or inert gas usually protects the welding area. A filler is typically used, though some welds, referred to as autogenous welds, don't require it. TIG welding is typically employed to weld stainless-steel and non-ferrous metals including aluminium, magnesium and copper alloys. Semi-Automatic processes include: - Metal Inert Gas (MIG) Welding - Whilst much like TIG welding, MIG welding utilizes a consumable metal welding wire fed through the welding gun to produce an arc between the wire and the surfaces being welded which melts the surfaces and also the wire, which serves as the filler. Some kind of shielding or inert gas usually protects the welding area. A MIG welder is often simpler to use than an ARC welder because it combines the welding gun and filler removing the need to support the gun in one hand and the filler in the other. Fully mechanised processes include: - Resistance welding (ERW) - Of which spot welding and seam welding would be the most common and used widely in the automotive and appliance manufacturing industries. Spot welders use two copper electrodes which clamp the materials to be welded together and pass a very high current between the electrodes which caused the sheets to heat and a pool of molten metal to form between the two electrodes. Seam welders are similar to spot welders but use two disc shaped copper electrodes between which the materials pass forming one long weld between the sheets resulting in a welded seam. Laser and electron beam welding - Also heavily employed in manufacturing industries. Laser welding replaces the electrodes employed in spot welding by using a laser that provides a concentrated source of heat enabling small deep welds and high volume welding rates. Laser welding is utilized extensively in the automotive manufacturing industries. Electron beam welding is a fusion welding process where a beam of electrons are shot at the materials being welded. Upon impact the kinetic or movement energy of the electrons in turned into heat energy which heats the materials and any filler utilized to weld the materials together. Electron beam welding is frequently done in a vacuum to stop the dissipation of the electrons being shot.

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